UCLA athletics can’t avoid bad public relations episodes. How will this negative cycle change? A lot of different things need to happen, but one is that the UCLA football NIL program has to be better at delivering results. Money needs to go to the right places in service of smart investments which put the new football coach — someone UCLA has not yet hired — in a position to succeed.
Bruins for Life and James Washington aren’t getting the job done, if you have followed the news lately. Martin Jarmond is overseeing an amateurish operation, anything but the professional and streamlined shop one ought to expect from a football program’s NIL organ. When UCLA football head coaching candidates interview for this job, they should do their homework and ask why the NIL piece of the puzzle has been clunky, inefficient, and not properly aligned. UCLA will need to give answers to the new head coach about structural changes and improvements which can give a new coach maximum return on investment and create a situation tailored to success.
Right now, the picture at UCLA football is missing so many obvious and necessary ingredients for an upgrade and a return to quality standards of performance and professional structuring of a program. The move from the Rose Bowl to SoFi Stadium isn’t even a top-three concern. NIL is, along with Martin Jarmond being a clear negative in relationship to the management of a football program. The head coach is the other top-three item. UCLA has to figure out the coach, the AD situation, and the NIL shop. Those three things come first.
Until the Bruins fix what is broken, they cannot expect to move forward and get out of the deep ditch they have created for their football program — regardless of where games will be played next year.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: UCLA NIL operations need to effectively support the next head coach
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
